


A Life in Eight-time

by Ilye



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 1930s, 1930s music, Awkward Conversations, Brooklyn, First Time, Flashbacks, Homosexual slurs, Jazz Age, M/M, Memories, Modern Era, Music, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, Resolved Sexual Tension, STEVE TINKERBELL ROGERS, Unresolved Sexual Tension, reference to heterosexual sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7497786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilye/pseuds/Ilye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barnes comes to with a hard-on in his pants and a rock in his chest. Steve’s not home. Barnes listens to the song six more times, just to be sure that the memory’s not a fake, or a fluid chimaera made up of his own desires. But the picture is so damned solid, so unwavering, his hard-on so persistent, that he has to take it at face value.</p><p>The first time they'd… <i>They’d</i>. Barnes'd never even known that they'd <i>they'd</i> until Billie Holliday started crooning at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He christened her Bessie

**Author's Note:**

> "Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories." - Oscar Wilde

_Bucky, the child-youth-young-man-recruit who went by that name, had been fifteen years old when he’d won a radio in a dancing competition._

_She was made of burnished wood veneer, a deep chestnut colour shaped into a dome with a copper grate in front of the speaker. There was a scratch along her left side, three of her four knobs were sticky as hell, the frequency dial was off by about 15 Hz and she weighed nearly as much as Steve did. Bucky was instantly in love._

_He hauled her back to their apartment and set her in pride of place amongst Steve's drafts and sketches on the dining table, the most stable flat surface in the place. She took up most of the remaining space, slotting right in like she owned the joint and that was where she was gonna stay._

_(Bucky wasn’t about to argue. It wasn’t like they ever_ _ate_ _off the table, anyways. And if you were gonna sit at the table then you deserved to have a name, so he christened her Bessie.)_

_By the time Steve came home from class, Barnes had already tuned Bessie in to 1400 kHz and relegated the front room’s scraps of furniture to the perimeter, and was dancing in front of the window with the autumn breeze on his face. The way Steve’s face lit up like October sunshine made Bucky’s toes tingle._

_The first thing Steve did was sit down at the table next to Bessie and draw Bucky dancing to Eddie Condon._

~✪~

He remembers all this when Steve hands him a preloaded iPod and urges him to dock it in the tiny little station that makes a helluva noise on the apartment’s only book-free shelf. Barnes stares at the thing, aching with a freshly-dug nostalgia for his 1932 Thomas and its solid presence in their old lives.

Twenty minutes later, he comes to with the iPod still in his palm and Steve gently waving a hand in front of his face whilst Barnes runs through the final steps of that prize-winning lindy hop in his head.

"I won a radio," he says, "in a competition. Called her Bessie." And it must have been the right thing to say because Steve's face cracks and the sun shines through his smile.

“You did. We had her on all the time, sometimes even left the static on low overnight too.”

There’s something else he’s not saying, something hidden in the twist of his lips. Barnes can hear that static like it’s piping through the apartment’s pervasive sound system. He frowns and tilts his head. Who knows, it might twitch the memory loose from the catacombs inside his brain, because Steve ain’t giving anything away.

“I lied on my entry form,” he tries eventually. “I needed to be sixteen to enter, and I was still a few months off my birthday.”

Steve smiles again, and whatever he’s been hiding isn’t there anymore. Barnes suspects the secret’s gone to ground, rather than being ousted by his lame excuse for a memory.

“Try playing something,” Steve says, gesturing to the iPod. “It’s full of music from the old days. Thought it might help you feel more at home here.” He makes a casual shrug, then skids on socked feet towards the kitchen.

Barnes glares after him for a moment, frustration simmering like it always done when Steve gets his sanctimonious _you’ll-remember-in-your-own-time_ thing going on. No wonder Barnes threw him through a window in Bucharest. Finally he presses play, if only so’s the big band drowns out the wail of the coffee machine.


	2. The Darktown Strutters' Ball

_Steve couldn’t dance. Not on account of he’s got two left feet, or on account of being shy. Neither of those were true. He couldn’t dance because he'd got asthma, and swinging actually takes a bit of oomph and a lotta puff, and when you spun that up in a dance hall full o' smoke, well, Bucky didn't care what the doctors said about exercise and asthma cigarettes, it was priming for Steve to start wheezing and coughing and turning blue like Bucky's worst nightmares all over again._

_But, stubborn little punk that he is, Steve really_ wanted _to dance. And, well, Bucky couldn't blame him there, cos there's a thrill in those Charleston kicks, a buzz in the bust-outs, a satisfaction in the swing-outs, and Duke had it right: it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing._

_So Bucky got an idea when the band picked up Darktown Strutter's Ball and he’s spinning that night’s girl, Alice, around to the second repeat._

“I'll be there to catch you in a taxi, honey  
Better be ready 'bout half past eight  
I mean, don't be late  
Be there when the band start playing...”

_Bucky nearly missed a step, which was unheard of and he'd’ve had to go to confession on Sunday if he'd slipped up that bad. But, well, it was nearly 11:30, and if he hightailed it home he could still make it before they at the last song on WNEW before the airwaves shut down at midnight. It was always a slow one, winding listeners down for the night. So he muttered some excuse to Alice, pecked her on the cheek, and grabbed his jacket and hat as he quicktimed it out of the hall._

~✪~

It's a very young Ella Fitzgerald who reminds him of this. Barnes is lying flat on his back on the hardwood floor and twitches violently with the memory, like he’s still dashing down that darkened Brooklyn street to their apartment block on a chilly March evening. There’s a rustle from the sofa as Steve twists to eyeball him over the back of it.

“Hmm?” he prods gently. Barnes narrows his eyes at him – he cottoned on days ago that Steve’s been planting songs in the playlists like a treasure trail, cunningly designed to taunt him down memory lane and occasionally trip him up so he lands face-first into a vivid recollection, like a particularly deep pothole.

Except Steve’s face is busy looking innocent, and since he wasn’t there when Bucky had the best idea of 1936, Barnes figures it must be genuine.

Huh.

He waves the stereo remote vaguely in the air, and somehow manages to hit the right button so the song replays from the start. Steve marks his place in his book and sets it aside, then turns to rest his chin on top of his hands on top of the sofa back and watches Barnes with interest. Barnes closes his eyes and snaps his fingers along to the beat, waiting out the lines that set him off before he sings along to make his point.

"Remember when we get there honey  
Dance all over the floor  
Dance all over my shoes  
When the band plays the Jelly Roll Blues..."

“ _Oh._ ” Emphatic, that, and when Barnes opens his eyes, it’s clear that Steve’s got with the programme. “Was this what made you come home early that night and try to slow-dance me around the front room?”

“Yeah.” Barnes sits up cross-legged and braces his elbows on his knees. “‘S funny, you know, I don’t even remember what the song we actually danced to was.”

“I’d hardly call it dancing – think we were both laughing too hard,” Steve grins, and he’s right. He’d insisted he felt like a kid, but they were both in gales and somehow, it didn’t seem to matter. “Nearly set my asthma off all on its own, that did – not to mention I almost bust my elbow when I fell over.”

“Yeah,” Barnes says, hanging his head even though he’s grinning too, “not my smartest idea ever, but whaddya gonna do?” He glances up – and then, mid-shrug, that’s when the next Eureka moment smacks him between the eyes. Maybe it’s because he wants to see that lightness on Steve’s face again, or maybe he just wants to do something that doesn’t involve moping around or trying not to think about killing people. He tries to sound nonchalant when he says it, but it still comes out a little over-keen.

“Could always try again, if you’re game.”

Steve makes a noise that’s somewhere between laughter and surprise. "I'm too big to dance on your shoes now, Buck. I'll break your toes."

"Newsflash, champ," Barnes tosses back, "you don't gotta wreck my best brogues no more. I'm gonna teach you where t’put them big hooves of yours all on your own." He gets to his feet and flips the remote until he finds something of the right beat that he can set on loop. Steve’s still watching him from the sofa, so he holds out his left hand.

“C’mon – it might not be as fun as last time, but I bet you’ll still get a kick from it.”

Steve relents and hops over the sofa, where he stands with one hip propped against it and his arms crossed over his chest. Barnes waggles the fingers of his outstretched hand, and finally Steve takes his hand.

“Remember anything at all?”

“We never got beyond a rock step, Buck,” Steve replies, all indulgent smile and crinkles around his baby blues. “You’ll have to start from scratch.”

Barnes had guessed as much, so he’s already winding his right arm around Steve’s waist and guiding Steve’s left hand back to rest on Barnes’ shoulder blade. He offers his metal hand to Steve, and Steve takes it without hesitation and is just one more reason Barnes wants to –

“So you’re leading, I guess?” Steve interrupts that train of thought, which Barnes supposes is a good thing because he’s never had much luck with trains. He blinks to ground himself again, then shrugs.

“Kinda, but it don’t gotta be like that. You don't wanna follow, I can switch and back-lead. But..." He hesitates, just to make sure it's a real memory, before ploughing on. "I always thought a same-sex pair’d make a more interesting dance – more cooperative, y’know? I mean, you still gotta have a lead for the direction and a follow for the flair, but I figured it’d be more of a conversation, less of a give-and-take of orders.”

“You thought about this a lot, huh?” Steve asks gently. And then, Barnes realises he had.

“Yeah. I wanted to dance with you a lot.”

He doesn’t know where that came from. They stare at each other. Steve’s face is doing something strange, like hope collided with constipation, and Barnes is beginning to regret falling off that last train of thought after all. He clears his throat and elaborates.

“I thought you’d get it. I wanted to try. Thought if I could just teach you the basics, we’d at least manage something slow, and...” He glances away, frowning, because he’s not sure why, but – “and I wanted to do that.”

They’re still standing in closed position, which Barnes is reminded of when Steve’s fingers close more tightly around his good shoulder. He looks back at Steve, and there’s a smile there waiting for him, crooked but earnest.

“Yeah, pal, I get it.” Steve shifts his weight from foot to foot, squares his shoulders, and lifts his chin.

“So let’s try having this conversation, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [The Darktown Strutters' Ball by Ella Fitzgerald](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSpxUzwEqpE)
> 
> 2\. Thank you to everyone who's left comments or kudos. Really appreciate knowing that you like this :)
> 
> 3\. If you’re in London, Sydney, Melbourne or Berlin and want to learn some of this stuff, I can wholeheartedly recommend [Swing Patrol](http://www.swingpatrol.com/)
> 
> 4\. Apropos of the above, I’m not American! If you spot anything dodgy with my slang, please let me know!


	3. Mr Five by Five

_They’d made it out to what the British deemed a “pub”, which seemed to be a quaint, low-key approximation of a bar stocked with warm beer, peculiar carpets and questionable humour. Well, when in Rome, as the saying went, but Bucky was damned before he’d drink anything the limeys had the balls to call ‘beer’._

_Thankfully Falsworth had managed to find some whiskey amongst the horse-piss on draught, which Bucky was nursing and pretending to get lit on like the rest of the squad. Behind the bar, a tinny radio was squawking out some recording of a song that had been released whilst Bucky was in the field and didn’t recognise. That in itself was a grating oddness – between Bessie, the cinemas and the dance halls, there hadn’t been a song he didn’t recognise before the war. Somehow, though, it seemed fitting, like it muddled into the state of slightly altered consciousness he'd felt since getting captured._

_Things were different now, but subtly and wrongly so; just darkened around the edges if you knew where to look. Time was shifting and capricious. His own body regularly betrayed him. Injuries took days to heal now when they should have taken weeks. Alcohol’s effects lasted a fraction of the time they used to, and he could orgasm four times in a row without breaking a sweat. His team seemed closer than ever, in the sense that you need to get close to someone to slit their throat with your knife. And then there was Steve, still the same principled firecracker he always was, but wrapped up in the muscle of some hulking alien dreamboat._

_Said principled dreamboat was currently spinning a yarn about some USO show escapade to lighten the mood. Bucky wasn’t really listening, because the entire USO performing monkey affair got him in such a lather that he wanted to go outside and punch a wall, so instead he tuned into the radio. The programming cycled through several songs – Steve’s anecdote was a long one, or maybe he’d segued into a second – some unfamiliar and a couple of more bluesy ballads that tugged on the old heart strings, all right. Bucky was starting to feel sick with nostalgia and about to excuse himself for the night by blaming it on the whiskey, when the programmers got their thumbs out of their asses and dredged up something cheerful._

“Mister Five by Five   
He's five feet tall and he's five feet wide   
He don't measure no more from head to toe   
Than he do from side to side”

 _He started snapping his fingers in time to the jazzy intro – earning himself a pleased little smile from Steve for the effort – when the lyrics started. And he was humming along when something flipped inside his brain, and maybe the whiskey_ had _affected him, just a little, because suddenly Bucky could see Steve simultaneously as 90 scrawny pounds of trouble that didn’t come past his shoulder, and as that same trouble multiplied up to 240 pounds that now required Bucky to tilt his head up so they could see eye-to-eye. So whether it was the whiskey, or the exhaustion since Azzano or even just the good old-fashioned trauma of watching his friends get blown to bits, Bucky went to pieces. The table fell silent. He looked up from where he’d doubled over his knees laughing, and somehow the squad’s astonished faces just made him laugh harder._

_“I just – Steve, this song, I had an image…” He gestured vaguely with his glass in Steve’s direction, hoping that it emphasised the ridiculous width of his shoulders. “You’re five feet wide now, but in my head–” he paused to suck in a breath and wipe his eyes, “–in my head you’re five feet tall still, and…” He tailed off, still chuckling softly to himself._

_Steve pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, but the corners of his mouth were tense enough that Bucky knew he had to be hiding a smile._

~✪~

“Well twirl my turban, man alive!  
Here comes Mister Five by Five!”

Barnes is in hysterics before Ella Mae Morse has even got to the third line. He hears a _thunk_ as Steve drops his forehead onto the table.

"You remember." Steve's groan is muffled, but Barnes can still hear that same old smile under it. "Shit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Mr Five by Five, sung by Ella Mae Morse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nEOeWxlxT0)
> 
> 2\. I’m British and I’m rather partial to our beer, thanks. I’m just aware that the tastes don’t translate to other countries ;-)


	4. Let's Call a Heart a Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in as many days! And this one's a long one. Good job I'm on holiday XD
> 
> Also, please note that I updated the tags. Hopefully there shouldn't be anything unexpected or offputting in the additions.

_Steve was sitting on the windowsill reading when Bucky finally crawled out of bed that Sunday, well after church’d kicked out and so late that it was barely proper to call it ‘morning’. Bessie was tuned to her usual 1400 kHz and chuntering quietly with some talk show that was easy to tune out. Steve raised an eyebrow, which Bucky ignored as he shuffled towards the stove where the coffee had long-gone lukewarm in the pot._

_“Late night?” Steve asked, like he didn’t already fuckin’ know. Bucky splashed some coffee into a cup with one hand and, fisting a yawn with his other hand, swivelled to face him._

_“Got busy,” he grunted. Steve’s other eyebrow lifted and he brought his surprise down from the windowsill to join Bucky on the sofa._

_“Busy?” Steve shifted sideways to make room in the shade for Bucky’s hangover iwhen a shaft of light across his eyes made him wince. “Or laid?”_

_Bucky lifted a shoulder. “We went all the way,” he announced without great feeling, then added as Steve opened his mouth, “Don’t fret, I used a rubber.”_

_“Well, okay then.” There was an awkward silence that tightened around Bucky’s headache like a vice, then: “What was it like?”_

_Bucky snorted so hard that coffee nearly came out of his nose. “What’s this, vicarious fucking now?”_

_There was a smirk in the slight curl of Steve’s lips, but his voice was serious when he replied, “Well it ain’t like I got a shot at it myself anytime soon, is it?”_

_There was a note of distaste in his voice, something Bucky couldn’t put his finger on, but that wasn’t down to Steve’s general lack of luck with the dames. Bucky took a deep swig from his coffee – cold, now – and wrinkled his nose, though at what, he wasn’t too sure._

_“You ain’t missin’ much,” he said eventually and collapsed back into the sofa with a sigh. Last night’s memories felt stale and grubby – hell,_ he _felt stale and grubby. “I mean, she was pretty enough, soft and curvy and keen like mustard, all slick like I told you girls get down there, but I couldn’t exactly feel that through the rubber, could I?” He curled his lip and shrugged again, hoping it conveyed his ambivalence towards the affair without the damning details: how she'd been soft in all the wrong places, too full of figure, too willing and not_ hot _enough, not mouthy enough or handsy enough or ballsy enough, not_ enough _, not…_ not Steve _._

_“I dunno. Let’s just say it didn’t exactly cream my soda.”_

_Judging from the look on Steve’s face, he didn’t know whether to laugh or give Bucky a hug. Bucky would’ve preferred the laughter – at least that wouldn’t’ve made him feel like he was going to shatter into tiny perverted pieces._

_“So what did you do?” Steve asked quietly. “Did you even finish?”_

_“‘Course I finished,” Bucky scoffed, because what did Steve take him for? “Just shut my eyes and thought of –” You. “– somethin’ else.”_

_Steve made a soft noise in the back of his throat, seemingly appeased. “I think you’re right,” he agreed. “Don’t sound like something I’d be all that keen on.” His scrawny chest belled in a humourless laugh. “Maybe Ma was right when she pointed out we looked like we’d be living on the right side o’ town when we took this place together.”_

_“You callin’ us fairies as well now, then?” Bucky rounded on him because_ shit _, like that, was his secret out? He’d laughed it off when Sarah Rogers had made that comment, after they’d announced they were moving over here together, and Sarah and Steve had both laughed too. But Bucky’d taken her meaning well enough and yeah, he knew what it looked like to anyone with an eye for that. It was cheap, their apartment, because it was in the rougher part of town where the dockers stomped and swore during the day and at night, the fags came out to play. But they could afford it, was the main thing, and it suited Bucky because he could look after himself (and who’s to know if he supplemented the rent with a suckjob a few times a month?), and it suited Steve because he could always find a model to sit for his portfolio and a fight to quench his temper. But this time Steve, for once in his life, didn’t rise to the bait._

_“Me, maybe,” he said, sounding as thoughtful and as calm as Bucky had ever heard him. “Yeah, maybe I am.”_

_Bucky had no idea where that came from. He felt his eyes widen, his eyebrows furrow, his lips part, and had no control over it at all._

_“Steve,” he croaked, reaching for his hand. Steve took it and squeezed, like Bucky was the one who needed reassurance, for fuck’s sake! Because, sure, Bucky’d called himself a fairy once or twice, inside his own head where it was safe. And all right, it looked like that was true, but that was inside his own head where it was safe! But it wouldn’t be safe no more, not out in the open like this – and weren’t it just like his Stevie to find new and more dangerous ways of getting himself beaten up?_

_Bucky swallowed around where his stomach had lodged in his throat, and who knew what his face was doing this time, because Steve was squeezing his hand even tighter and Bucky knew he had to say something here._

_“Well,” he managed eventually, “it ain’t just me, then. There must be something wrong with the both of us and if I gave it to you then shit, I’m so sorry, Stevie, I didn’t mean –”_

_Steve was suddenly four inches closer, all up in Bucky’s face with his bony artist’s hand tight on Bucky’s shoulder._

_“This ain’t no sickness, Buck,” he hissed, his eyes wild and furious. “Trust me – I know a thing or two about being sick, and this ain’t it, I’m tellin’ you. You never gave me no inversion because it’s not a damned sickness to give.”_

_Bucky was staring, he knew, but Lord help him it was impossible not to with that Rogers firework going off right in front of you. He had one hand on Steve’s chest, not to hold him off but so’s he could feel its inner workings. Bucky felt feverish and he could feel Steve's fragile, furious little heart crashing away the same as Bucky's was inside his own ribs. He felt breathless and a little giddy and floaty-stomached and he_ wanted _, but he didn't… He didn't feel sick. He felt like he'd run a mile laughing, which wasn't something a man did when sick. And Steve, pink in the face and short of breath and pupils wide and muscles straining towards something imperceptible – well, Steve knew sick, so who was Bucky to disbelieve him?_

 _“C’mon, Buck, it’s all academic with me anyways,” Steve said then, and he was smiling, Jeez Louise_ how _could he be smiling? “What’s it matter what I think about inside my own head? We both know I don’t got no chance with the girls or the guys.”_

 _“‘S because they’re all idiots,” Bucky growled. He tightened his fingers experimentally in the cotton of Steve’s shirt, the good one that he wore to church on Sundays. Steve fell into him with no real effort on Bucky’s part and he must have confessed to a_ lot _that morning or else he’d seen a doctor dressed like that because suddenly their lips were crushed together and Steve’s tongue was in his mouth and Bucky was straight-up_ groaning _because_ Christ _, he had Steve’s narrow hips between his thighs and Steve’s hot, angry little body against his chest and Steve’s teeth biting his lips and – fuck, Steve’s hard-on against his hip – and so what if last night’s girl hadn’t creamed his soda, ‘cos this morning’s fella was about to get him off like a bottle of pop._

_Sometime later, Bucky took a deep breath and opened his eyes with his head clear and his dick limp against his sticky belly. His hangover had gone. The clock had hit midday, and Bessie had slid from political chatter into a gentle Sunday afternoon pre-recorded music slot. The programmers had found an easy-going Billie Holiday single and she was singing to them quietly, like she’d known something all along._

“There are words that should be whispered gently.   
That's evidently the way to start.   
If I tell you what my dreams have been demanding,   
Let's call a heart a heart.”

_The grin that overtook him was unconquerable. He buried it in Steve’s hair, humming along to the tune under his breath and tapping out the slow eight-time along the naked ladder of Steve’s ribs. Steve squirmed on top of him. Bucky tightened his arms around him and Steve settled back against his chest with a heavy, contented exhale._

_“I reckon she’s got the right idea,” Bucky murmured, dipping his head so the words rumbled straight into Steve’s upturned ear. Steve shivered and lifted his head, one eyebrow canted curiously._

_“Yeah?”_

_“May as well call a heart a heart, and may as well call a fairy a fairy.”_

_Steve snorted and bit gently at Bucky’s shoulder in retribution. “I’ll be your fairy if you’ll be mine,” he teased, shifting so he rested his hands stacked flat on Bucky’s sternum and his chin on top of them. His eyes sparkled, setting bubbles fizzing in Bucky’s stomach._

_“You were always my fairy,” Bucky replied, pressing a kiss to those upturned lips. “And I’ll be yours for as long as you’ll have me.”_

~✪~

“When we are in a friendly situation  
My conversation may not be smart,  
But if we've to have a perfect understanding,  
Let's call a heart a heart.”

Barnes comes to with a hard-on in his pants and a rock in his chest. Steve’s not home. Barnes listens to the song six more times, just to be sure that the memory’s not a fake, or a fluid chimaera made up of his own desires. But the picture is so damned solid, so unwavering, his hard-on so persistent, that he has to take it at face value.

The first time they'd… _They’d_. Barnes'd never even known that they'd _they'd_ until Billie Holiday started crooning at him.

It explains some things. It explains a lot of things – like Steve’s sad, knowing smiles, like how Barnes is so physically comfortable around him, like how Steve doesn’t seem to mind when Barnes wakes up with enough wood in the morning to make a bent lumberjack drool. But they’re not the same people anymore and Barnes knows – he very definitely remembers – they’d agreed ‘for as long as you’ll have me’.

And Steve’s never said anything since Barnes came in. And...

And… Peggy. And Sharon. So maybe Steve was wrong, back then – maybe this all _was_ a sickness and whilst Steve’s serum straightened him right out, Bucky’s bastardised version left him crooked so’s even Hydra’s mind wipes couldn’t fry the fairy out of him. Which either means Barnes wants Steve but Steve ain’t that way inclined anymore, or Steve is still that way, but the fairy he wants ain’t Barnes.

Ugh. Emotions. Barnes doesn’t even know where to start finding the words for all this shit; they may as well have sewn his tongue to the roof of his mouth. But it’s still there, that goddamned persistent pulse in his pants, and Barnes knows he’s gotta do something about it.

When Steve gets back, Barnes has deleted the song from the iPod and the apartment is quiet except for the sound of the shower running whilst he tries to rub out the memory of their first time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Let's Call a Heart a Heart by Billie Holiday](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWeGe7IVhBw)
> 
> 2\. People with more historical nous than me have done research into where Steve and Bucky would’ve lived in the ‘30s. Turns out, they were smack-bang in the middle of Brooklyn’s thriving gay scene – if you haven't read it yet, you should totally check out [Mr Rogers’ Gaybourhood](http://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/213805.html).


	5. White Noise

_The broadcast chimed out at midnight and into white noise. It complemented the buzz in Bucky’s head where he sprawled along the length of the sofa under the wide-open window._

_He was drunk. It was hot. He felt good._

_There was a gentle clink as Steve put his pencil away in the little pot next to Bessie on the table. He turned the static down a notch, but ignored the power knob._

_“That’s our cue,” he said. “You comin’ to bed?”_

_Bucky was heavy and languid and comfortable. He groaned._

_“Can’t move.”_

_Steve’s chuckle tempted him into peering out from under the forearm thrown across his eyes. The apartment was dark, partly to save electricity and partly because the heavy Brooklyn summer nights felt cooler with the lights out. Bucky had no idea how Steve'd been drawing like that, especially with his eyes as bad as they were. Steve’s hair caught a flash of nightlight as he stepped closer and it flared bronze._

_Bucky could taste him already and he was still halfway across the room._

_"You gonna sleep out here, then?" Steve said, his voice gone low, and even in the half-dark Bucky could see his pupils were already blown. He’d always liked Bucky like this, when he was half-under and indolent and mouthy as fuck._

_"You never said nothin' about_ sleepin' _in the bed, sweetheart," Bucky drawled. Steve dropped his head with a chuckle, leaning on the back of the chair with one hand in his pocket._

 _"Aw, you got me." He lifted his head and_ there’s _that shit-eating grin Bucky fell in love with. "So you wanna fuck on the couch then, do ya?"_

_“You betcha, ace.” Bucky hitched one knee up, let the other drop invitingly sideways, and chucked his chin at Bessie hissing on the table. “Turn the old girl up a bit louder. I’m in the mood for a ruckus tonight.”_

~✪~

One of the songs on the iPod must have corrupted. It sneaks up on Barnes, pretending at first to be something inconsequential, something trivial, before it wrenches from gentle bluesy trumpet into white noise blasting through the headphones.

The memory garottes him and rattles the everloving shit out of him.

Sam’s over, sitting at the dining table chatting to Steve, and Barnes has to give Sam’s reactions credit for the way he ducks so the iPod hits the wall precisely behind where his head was seconds earlier. Barnes hadn’t meant to aim for Sam – he hadn’t aimed for anything at all, which says something for the strength of the memory if it’s shaken up his sniper skills. It’s a small consolation that the iPod wouldn’t have done much harm, anyway – even before impact, the it’s mostly dust from Barnes’ left hand.

Chair legs screech on the wood floor as Steve rockets to his feet, but Barnes is already stalking out of the living room. He can’t bear to be on the sofa, can’t bear to have Steve approach him, not with _that_ fresh in his head, when Bucky knows he’s gonna get a bellyful of constipated concern instead of the hot, horny mischief he craves right now.

There’s a murmur of voices – probably Steve checking Sam’s okay after nearly getting brained by a Steve Jobs patent – then the heavy, obvious footfalls of Steve following him to the balcony. Steve’s a big guy now, but he’s as light on his feet as he was before the serum, so Barnes knows he’s doing it deliberately to telegraph his presence. He stops somewhere near the sliding doors and Barnes can just picture him standing there, that scrawny, spunky Steve Rogers simmering under the surface of his most patient Captain America face, hands casually in pockets, shoulders purposefully relaxed. Barnes can’t look at him. He braces his elbows on the balcony railing and ducks his head, hunching his shoulders, interlocking his fingers at the base of his skull like they tell you to do in a plane crash.

“Didn’t mean to hit Sam,” he mutters into the wind. His ears are still stinging from having the earbuds ripped out of them.

Steve shifts his weight, and it sounds like a thunderclap. “You didn’t hit him,” he says, which Barnes knows perfectly well because he was _there_ , thank you very much, and his failure says nothing about his intent. Barnes communicates this by snorting, which was a bad plan because Steve takes it as an invitation to come closer.

“Maybe you can apologise to him later when your head’s back in the game,” he suggests in that offhand way of his that brooks no alternative. This time Barnes punctuates his non-verbal noise with a nod, because of course he’s going to apologise. Yeah, he was brainwashed, but he’s not an _asshole_.

There’s more thunder as Steve settles next to him at the railings. He leaves a good few handspans between them, but he’s still close enough that Barnes can feel the tension crackle between them. Without his say-so, the plates in his arm recalibrate and the hairs on his nape all stand to attention.

“What happened back there, Buck? What were you listening to?” Steve seems to have more sense than to touch Barnes right now, which is a good job because Barnes reckons he might bolt out of his own skin otherwise. The memory’s left him all switched on and electric and _feely_ , which ain’t half inconvenient because he’s been carefully avoiding emotions since the Billie Holiday incident. Having emotions means he needs to use words, and he definitely hasn’t excluded his dick from the brain–mouth filter enough to be ready for that conversation yet.

(He totally plans to have that conversation because – _not an asshole_. Steve deserves for them to have that conversation. But conversations require words and Barnes doesn’t have enough of a grasp on the right ones yet, not when his brain’s still trying to figure out what his body still remembers, not when he needs to play hopscotch around the Peggy thing and the Sharon thing and the fairy thing. So instead, he’s been through the playlist and carefully edited out anything that even remotely suggested a memory to him, just so he could avoid getting sucker-punched into this very conversation before he was ready. It’s just a shame his old arch nemesis Ill Fortune had to go and spoil it.)

He wants to jump over the railing and parkour into the street below in lieu of having this conversation now, even though he knows it’ll give Steve an aneurysm. But he doesn’t – once more with feeling:  _not an asshole_ – and just shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says, and he’s not even lying ‘though his throat’s full of sand and his heart’s beating like he’s just perjured himself. He can't tell Steve that his dick’s jumping for joy now he’s remembered the way they used to leave the static on after WNEW stopped broadcasting at midnight, to cover the sounds of them having sex. Regularly, repeatedly, delightedly having sex, and _good_ sex at that. Great sex, even. He has no words to explain that all those dreams he’s been having weren't just his imagination, and that the white noise of the broken song has jammed his head full of the scrape of Steve's stubble against Barnes’ throat and the weight of his cock in Barnes’ mouth.

He definitely has no way of explaining why the Billie Holiday incident wasn’t a one-off, ‘cos when you put it on the line, it’s actually difficult as hell to describe the precise way you’re in love with a person. Something in him's woken up and he has no words for it, but it’s _starving_.

Steve’s already opened his mouth to argue – and boy, does Barnes know the things that mouth can get up to, all of a sudden. But Barnes cuts him off with a growl, and Steve, for once in his life, falls obediently silent.

“Literally, Steve,” he croaks, “was nothing.” And then, because he _has_ to know – he doesn’t think he’ll be able to find the words anymore if he doesn’t know –

“Corrupted song. Switched to radio static.”

“ _Oh._ ” And that’s his answer right there, in a breath, in a gasp, in the sound a man makes when that first glass of water’s placed in front of him after a desert rescue. Barnes has got his head down again, so low that his forehead’s on the railing, but all it takes is a canny twist of his neck for him to see Steve’s expression, wrecked and hungry and…

Yeah. So Barnes knows now. And maybe he’s even more tongue-tied than he was before. But he’s a big boy now, with choices and feelings and free will and everything, and right now his will is to be anywhere but here, so he stands up straight, clears his throat, and tries not to look directly at the stymied confusion in Steve’s eyes.

“‘M gonna apologise to Sam,” he announces, already backing towards the glass doors, “then I’m goin’ out.” And then he doesn’t parkour over the balcony, and he goes for a walk.


	6. It's Been a Long, Long Time

Barnes walks, and thinks. A lot. And he comes to some conclusions.

He starts off easy and concludes that he’s still a fairy. He concludes that, as said fairy, he was in love with tiny, headstrong, angry Steve Rogers. He concludes that he’s also in love with big, constrained, heartsick Steve Rogers. He also concludes that tiny, headstrong, angry Steve Rogers loved him back, and so does big, constrained, heartsick Steve Rogers. But because big Steve Rogers is constrained, he hasn’t said anything about this to Barnes, even though he’s been so desperate for Barnes to remember that he made him a goddamned _playlist_.

(Barnes knows what that means now that he’s seen _Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist_ , and _High Fidelity_.

Come to think of it, there might be _yet another_ reason Sam picked those for movie night last week. Barnes makes a mental note to Have Words.)

But his biggest conclusion of them all is that big, constrained Steve Rogers is heartsick. Barnes doesn’t like that one bit, which means he _really_ needs to talk to Steve about this. Which, motherfucking _duh_. It’s not the knowing that’s the hard part.

But, mindwipes and torture be damned, he’s going to get it together for Steve any way he can because Steve needs him to. Barnes still catches glimpses of Steve’s old anger at the world’s injustices from time to time and it’s glorious, like fireworks against a clear sky, but the rest of the time it feels like an old bonfire with its embers banked like they’re in for a long, cold night. Maybe it’s because big Steve Rogers finally learned to pick his battles – but Barnes reckons there’s more to it than that. He reckons it’s that the injustices got too personal and, because Steve is _Steve_ , he never pulled his punches and now needs an extra pair of fists to help him out of an alleyway scrap like he used to when he was a kid.

(Hell, the guy made Barnes a playlist to help him recover his memories, for fuck’s sake. How’s that for not pulling your punches?)

Barnes has been out since before lunch and dusk’s looming by the time he gets back to the apartment. He hadn’t expected to find it empty. The lights are out and the grey autumn daylight’s fading fast, so it’s gloomy about the place. Steve and Sam’s half-empty coffee mugs are left on the table and the shattered iPod is still lying underneath Sam’s chair in a knot of headphones, sprinkled with plaster dust from the chip in the wall above. On the table is a note, held down by a plate of peanut butter cookies that Steve must’ve known Barnes’d be powerless to resist. He takes one and stuffs it in his mouth, whilst with his other hand he picks up the note and squints at it suspiciously.  

> _Bucky – gone out with Sam to give you some space. Be back late. Don’t wait up if you still don’t wanna talk about it._

And then he nearly chokes on cookie crumbs because, at the bottom of the note, Steve’s only gone and drawn himself as a fucking _fairy_ inside a goddamned _heart_. It’s Disney; it’s Tinkerbell in a ragged dress with wings and glitter, only she’s a he and _stacked_ with pecs and biceps and an itty-bitty waist, and that good old-fashioned Rogers shit-eating grin is twinkling out at him.

Barnes sits down hard on Sam’s chair and eats the rest of the cookies for the sake of his sanity.

By the time the plate’s empty, Barnes has bucked himself up and made a plan. He bought another iPod whilst he was out, not just because he felt guilty but also because he didn’t actually want to be without the music. He shreds the packaging getting the iPod out, plugs the device into Steve’s laptop, names it _Jobs > Stark_, then sets it to sync with all 3.2 GB of the playlist titled _Bucky’s era :-)_.

It’s the full, unedited version. Barnes decided roundabout cookie #3 that he’s taking charge of the situation since there’s no way he can trust a guy who’s drawn himself in a fairy costume to do it. So, whilst the sync finishes up, he fetches a pen and notepad, then creates a new playlist called _my life in eight-time_ and starts methodically adding to it everything that he’d deleted a few days previously.

He works his way down Steve’s original playlist, making notes as he goes ‘cos it’s the slickest way he can think of to get this show on the road when Steve finally decides to come limping home. Everything Steve’s picked out, epic as the playlist is, has some kind of association for Barnes, and he could make notes on each and every song. For most of them it’s something as simple as walking out the apartment door for work, with Bessie’s first tune of the morning already worming its way inside his skull where it’ll sit on repeat for the rest of the day. He leaves the little tasters of daily life aside, though, and instead starts whittling the list down to a handful of complex, defining events.

 

> _My life in eight-time – collector’s notes_
> 
>   * _I’m Gonna Stomp, Mr Henry Lee (Eddie’s Hot Shots) – this was playing the very first time I got Bessie tuned in. I think you drew me dancing._
> 

>   * _Darktown Strutters’ Ball (Ella Fitzgerald) – it made you laugh and you don’t do that much no more. (But you should.)_
> 

>   * _Mr 5x5 (Ella Mae Morse) because_ _you_ _made_ _me_ _laugh (I’m laughing now just thinking of it. You’re a pip, big guy.)_
> 

>   * _Let’s Call a Heart a Heart (Billie Holiday). Oh boy. We need to talk about this one, but… I_ _remember_ _._
> 

>   * _Get Happy (Benny Goodman’s version) – the theme tune of 1935. Hummed this one incessantly when it came out. Bugged the hell out of you – thought you were gonna blow a gasket!  
>    
>  _
>   * _In a Sentimental Mood (Duke Ellington) – and this was the asshole that got corrupted earlier and turned into static. If you wanna listen again, then so do I._
> 


 

He’s about a third of the way down the playlist when he spots a song he’s not familiar with. It’s by Harry James and his orchestra, who were around in Bucky’s day, but there’s a girl singing too and it ain’t ringing any bells so Barnes hits play and routes it by Bluetooth to the speaker system, figuring Steve must’ve put it on the playlist for a reason.

 _“You'll never know how many dreams_  
_I've dreamed about you_  
_Or just how empty they all seemed without you._  
_So kiss me once, then kiss me twice,_  
_Then kiss me once again._  
_It's been a long, long time.”_

Many loops later, it’s still on repeat but Barnes still can’t get it to tease anything out of his head. He’s squatted in front of the laptop on the coffee table, frowning at it (not glaring, he’s _not_ glaring), when Steve comes home. It takes a heartbeat too long for the door to close, and when Barnes looks over at Steve he’s standing stock still in the dark hallway, those ridiculous shoulders set so rigid he may as well be marble, and he’s dropped his shopping.

(The bag at Steve’s feet is white and sporting a big Apple logo. Barnes would make books on it having another replacement iPod inside it, the sap.)

Barnes gets up and hands him the piece of paper. Steve looks down, but his eyeline skims past Barnes’ notes whilst his face does something uncomfortable before he lifts his eyes to Barnes and gives a wry, twisted parody of a smile.

“Of all the songs you had to be listening to, Bucky.”

So there _is_ a memory tied to it, then. Barnes gets straight to the point.

"Why don't I remember this one?"

There's something about it, even though he doesn't remember it, that’s set his flesh itching under his skin like there's something he needs to know.

"Because it wasn’t released until November 1945,” Steve says, showing no signs of wanting to move from the hall. "You were 'dead’."

Barnes can hear the inverted commas and puts the same inflection into his own response.

"Then why's it on my playlist? You were 'dead’ too."

"I didn't realise it was. Came with a compilation or something." A pause and then, with a delicious, resentful heat that makes Barnes’ mouth water, "I don't like it."

He looks mournful but he _sounds_ angry. Barnes could turn the music down, but he’s not going to. They’re already so far along a tangent from where this conversation should be that he can’t see where they started anymore, but he wants to niggle this emotion out of Steve, so he reaches around the doorway between the hall and the living room and turns the music _up_.

The paper in Steve’s hand crumples, very slightly, under the increased pressure from his fingers, but even now he’s got enough control over himself that it remains a recognisably flat sheet which was _exactly Barnes’ point_ about constraint and heartsickness.

“Jesus, pal – you couldn’t just ask _why_?” Steve grinds out with the barest edge of a hysterical laugh in his voice. He shakes his head and draws a long, deep breath through his nose. “For one thing it was playing when Fury got shot – you weren’t even close enough to hear, don’t start getting guilty on me –” And it’s too late for that because Barnes feels like the biggest mook that ever mooked, but Steve doesn’t give him time to catch breath before the next verbal sucker punch.

“And that’s not even the worst of it – the worst is that it makes me think of…" Steve stops short, and Barnes knows it’s habit choking him up.

 _It makes me think of you_ is what Steve had been about to say. And that really gets Barnes in a lather, knowing that Steve’s been living in this dichotomy for Barnes’ sake where his heart’s invested in something without reserve, but his emotions’re kept on a leash in case they out him and upset Barnes’ apple cart.

Well, Barnes ain’t standing for that no more, not from the man who drew himself as _Tinkerbell_. He takes a step forward so he's inside Steve's personal space.

"Go on. Say it."

Steve's eyes are wide and colourless in the bleached light. The song's quietly begun its umpteenth loop and the long instrumental intro is just starting to bloom with emotional brass. Barnes can get how the swells and key of the thing might tug on the old heartstrings, let alone the lyrics. He waits, watching with a jittery twist in his belly as Steve’s eyebrows pull together and unhappy lines form at the corners of his mouth. But then, at long _fuckin’_ last, Steve looks down at the piece of paper in his hand and actually reads what’s on it. His eyes soften, and he gets a little more colour in his cheeks, and the next breath he shudders out sounds like he’s been holding it for a very long time.

"It's about a sweetheart returning home from the war," Steve says at length, and his words are cautiously, precisely weighted for eggshells, like he still doesn’t believe this is happening. It should have been the biggest non-sequitur going, except Barnes knows exactly what he means.

"Well that ain't no cause to be sad, sweetheart," he replies. He hears Steve swallow in the dark, and he wants to press his lips to the swell of Steve's Adam's apple and feel him do it again.

“The war’s over, Stevie,” he murmurs, crowding close enough now to feel Steve’s breath against his lips. “ _Our_ war’s over.”

Steve sags against him, opening to him. The paper floats to the floor, forgotten.

“Yeah,” he sighs as Barnes kisses him once, twice, and once again. “Yeah, looks like it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. So you lot are all amazing with the kudos and the comments. Thank you - I'm really touched to know so many people are enjoying this :-)
> 
> 2\. I've put together [an 8tracks playlist](http://8tracks.com/ilye-elf/a-life-in-eight-time) for everything listed in this chapter. Turns out it can be a bit awkward if you're outside the US or Canada, so let me know if anything's being awkward that you want to hear and I'll try to find the equivalent on YouTube.
> 
> ETA: The amazing Creidhe has now put together [a Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/creidhe/playlist/6NIb739OnYO50Xp29DUdVz) as well! Go listen and say thank you to her in passing!
> 
> 3\. This entire chapter may or may not be a not-so-subtle dig at the use of this song in _The Winter Soldier_. The song was written in 1932, but I can’t see that it was released until November 1945, certainly not the version recorded by Harry James and his orchestra. 
> 
> 4\. You might notice that the chapter count has gone up. There will now be a short epilogue, which (muse willing) won't follow too far behind this one.
> 
> 5\. If anybody has the skills to draw STEVE TINKERBELL ROGERS, I would dearly love to see it. I don't think my stick figures are up to the challenge, sadly :-(
> 
> [ETA: 6. DID U KNO someone has actually drawn STEVE TINKERBELL ROGERS and h0ly shitballs it's awesome. [Check it out!](http://nicoise-salad.tumblr.com/tagged/magical-captain-america)]


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short addendum as the boys catch up with modern music. Influenced in part by my own tastes (and clearly Bucky has dreadful taste in music because seriously. David Bowie. And Christina Aguilera was his choice.)

 

> _LEAVE THIS NOTE ON THE FRIDGE, DAMMIT! HOW AM I MEANT TO ADD TO IT WHEN IT KEEPS DISAPPEARING?!_
> 
>  
> 
> _ New music, new life (to be added to as we catch up with the world)  _
> 
>   * _20th Century Boy (Placebo cover). I wanna be your toy.  
>  _
>   * _Radio Gaga (Queen). Damn you and your Queen obsession, Steve, this could be almost any of their songs. I mean, they’re all pretty tolerable, so I’ll take it if it means I get to spend Sunday afternoons on the sofa with you and the radio. I guess.  
>  _
>   * _Dirrty (Christina Aguilera). Two words, Rogers: Slut drop.  
>  _
>   * _I Want to Break Free (Queen). “But life still goes on… I can't get used to living without living without living without you by my side”. Christ, Stevie, I thought you were actually going to lose it to these lyrics. Hopefully you’ll remember my Freddie Mercury impression instead now, huh? (Also, you know I rocked the heels-and-hoover look, don’t even pretend I didn’t.)  
>  _
>   * _Wrecking Ball (Miley Cyrus). Remember we tried the tongue thing? The tongue thing is good. Let’s do that again sometime.  
>  _
>   * _Heroes (David Bowie). 1) Yes I know it’s cheesy. 2) Yes I know I said he doesn’t cream my soda. 3) This is the exception that proves the rule a ~~nd okay I might be a sucker for anything with a Brian Eno guitar riff~~.  
>  _
>   * _Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen, oh what a surprise! Why does all the Queen in all the world remind me of you?) This song’s going into the hall of fame for being the one that found Steve Rogers’ rhythm. Honestly, the first time you got your hips loosened up to this, ~~I thought I’d died and gone to heaven~~ okay sorry no death jokes on the happy list. I popped the biggest boner I’ve had since I was a teenager – how’s that for honesty and feeling-sharing, buddy?_
> 



End file.
